The University of Alabama

Five months after vowing “segregation forever” at his 1963 inaugural, Gov. George C. Wallace tried to block the admission of two black students to the all-white University of Alabama.

Wallace’s defiant “Stand in the Schoolhouse Door” failed to keep out minorities as he intended. But it launched Wallace onto the national political scene and moved the Democratic Party firmly into the corner of civil rights.

“What happened that day did represent a tectonic shift in American politics,” said Dr. E. Culpepper Clark, former UA communications dean and the author of “The Schoolhouse Door: Segregation’s Last Stand at the University of Alabama.”

In 2003, the University held a three-day observance for the anniversary of Wallace’s infamous stand. Honorees included Vivian Malone Jones and James Hood, the two black students who faced the governor that day.

Jones, who entered as a junior after attending a historically black college, became the first black graduate of Alabama in 1965. Hood left after a few months but returned to receive his doctorate in 1997.

Like other places, Alabama still works to overcome race-related issues. But on campus, interracial friendships have been forged just around the corner from where Wallace made his stand. Courtney Tooson, a former black student from Birmingham, said he wishes there was more emphasis on remembering what happened in ’63.

“If you don’t teach someone their past, how can they dictate their future?” he asked.

Source: CBS News